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  1. Adam Barratt

    Onkyo TX-RZ3100 for $1,499 - would you consider it?

    The RZ3100 definitely supports Dolby Vision.
  2. Adam Barratt

    We lost Steve Tannehill

    Wow, I really wasn't expecting to read this. Rest in peace, Steve. You were a passionate individual, a pioneer, and a constant presence in my digital home theatre journey.
  3. Adam Barratt

    Buying a new car

    I just bought my first US car (a new Ford Fiesta ST) after a lifetime of owning Japanese marques, and I'm pretty impressed with it. No squeaks or rattles, solid construction. I'm coming from a 2008 Subaru Legacy GT Spec.B. Up until recently I never would have considered a US car, but they really...
  4. Adam Barratt

    Our Moderator Robert Fowkes passed away last Friday, Sept 30, 2011

    RAF was always a great friend, and always willing to help with his encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema and technology. I'm glad that our paths crossed over the last decade, if sadly never in person. I will miss him. Rest in peace. Adam
  5. Adam Barratt

    Oppo BDP-83 put in Lexicon case and sold for $3000 more

    This really isn't a new phenomenon. High end manufacturers have sold re-badged equipment for many years. What really amazes me in this case are the facts that Lexicon stated that the player had been improved in some way (a la Ayre or Theta's treatment), when it clearly hadn't; and that the...
  6. Adam Barratt

    Testy Area 51

    I didn't know there was any debate about Van Helsing's awfulness?
  7. Adam Barratt

    Toshiba to produce Blu-ray Disc Player

    I've seen the player's specs, and it's nothing to shout about. Looks like a re-badge of one of the mass-produced Chinese machines. No fancy video processing (like the XA2) and no XDE. No HD DVD support. In fact, nothing much to mention other than the standard feature set of a Profile 2.0...
  8. Adam Barratt

    Terminator 1 & 2

    Very interesting. Thanks for that Van! Certainly not the first time marketing people have caused confusion by failing to understand the products they sell. Given the true multichannel capabilities of the Blu-ray audio formats, these kinds of marketing fudges have the potential to annoy a lot...
  9. Adam Barratt

    Terminator 1 & 2

    Van, I recently picked up the Australian (and New Zealand) version of T2: Skynet, and although the disc packaging and menu state that it contains a DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 soundtrack, my equipment only indicates 5.1. The AVS audio/video specifications list also states that the disc is 5.1ES...
  10. Adam Barratt

    Powerline Ethernet Adapters

    I had a Netcomm NP285 85Mbps HomePlug pair between my Pioneer BDP-95HD Blu-ray player and a PC/router. I used it to serve media files, and it seemed to work fine (was also good for upgrading HD DVD firmware and for online HD DVD material) until I bought a local storage system. I also have an...
  11. Adam Barratt

    Blu-ray Glitch List - Titles you might want to avoid.

    Looks like the right surround channels disappears from about the 1 hour 32 minute mark in Universal's Inside Man disc, and stays missing for the last 40 odd minutes. Adam
  12. Adam Barratt

    Suggestions on Blu Ray Players

    Virtually all DVDs use 448kbps these days for Dolby Digital (5.1). On Blu-ray you will normally get (using S/PDIF): DTS: 1509kbps vs 754kbps (typical on DVD) Dolby Digital: 640kbps vs 448kbps (typical on DVD) Adam
  13. Adam Barratt

    Sony problems

    I've had good experiences: - DVP-S725 DVD player: worked flawlessly for four years. - DVP-NS900V DVD player: 4000 hours of use and still working when sold. - WM-FX77 Walkman: still works after 17 years (and so it should: cost me $360). - Sony 29" CRT TV: worked great until I sold it...
  14. Adam Barratt

    T2 Announced on BD

    Jumping Jehosophat! Lionsgate is re-releasing Terminator 2 in a new super-deluxe version? I didn't see that one coming. Adam
  15. Adam Barratt

    What can we do about Warner Bros?

    The core of a DTS-HD MA/HR track provides some backward-compatibility but, given the installed base of Dolby Digital decoders, a separate Dolby Digital track provides more. The combination of a TrueHD track for maximum resolution and a Dolby Digital track for maximum backward-compatibility seems...
  16. Adam Barratt

    What can we do about Warner Bros?

    There are only two tracks present: one TrueHD and a complementary Dolby Digital track for backward-compatibility. If the TrueHD track can't be processed by a player, the second track is used instead and the TrueHD bypassed entirely. There is no 'core' legacy Dolby Digital track that can be...
  17. Adam Barratt

    Your 1st DVD player vs. 1st Blu-ray player: How much and when did you buy?

    My first DVD player was a Yamaha DVD-1000. It was actually two players: the chassis was from Singapore and everything else was from the US, imported into New Zealand and then assembled. It was the first Yamaha DVD player officially imported into the country. This was in January 1998 and I paid...
  18. Adam Barratt

    Please help in deciding between Denon 3808 Vs Onkyo 876

    Yes, it's part of a firmware upgrade (for features, the stability upgrades are free) due next month. I'm not sure what the exact cost is, but not cheap (100 Euros in Europe or ~US$150 when announced back at the end of June). Adam
  19. Adam Barratt

    Please help in deciding between Denon 3808 Vs Onkyo 876

    I doubt you will find much in the way of comparisons yet. The Onkyo 876 is just too new, and a generation more recent than the 3808. There are plenty of comparisons between the 3808 and the 875, though. They're quite close in performance. I would give the edge in video conversion to the Onkyo...
  20. Adam Barratt

    Is Dolby TrueHD and dts HD-MA possible on an Yamaha RX-V2095?

    I had a Yamaha DSP-A1 amp (the 2095's bigger brother) and a Panasonic DMP-BD10 Blu-ray player hooked up using analogue connections and both TrueHD and PCM sounded great. Your 2095 and a player like the Sony S550 (or Panasonic BD50/55) should work well together. Adam
  21. Adam Barratt

    Sony DTS Dolby Master Decoding Question

    Probably only if the soundtrack is stereo, which is what the Neo:6 process was intended for (converting stereo to 5/6 channel pseudo surround, much like Dolby Pro Logic 2). Adam
  22. Adam Barratt

    Sony DTS Dolby Master Decoding Question

    In the player's setup menu you should set Audio Output Priority to 'HDMI', Audio (HDMI) to 'Auto' and BD Audio Setting to 'Direct'. Your amp should automatically detect the audio and decode it correctly if connected by HDMI. Remember that you may have to select the lossless audio through the...
  23. Adam Barratt

    Denon 3808 vs Onkyo TX-SR875 or TX-NR905

    I listened to SACD (I have no DVD-Audio discs and haven't had a player capable of DVD-A for about six months) using the analogue inputs (the 875/905 will accept DSD over HDMI but I think the upcoming Sony ES SACD player is the first to support this capability). I thought it sounded very good...
  24. Adam Barratt

    Sony DTS Dolby Master Decoding Question

    No. The player needs to have HDMI 1.3 output to send the raw data to a receiver. The S300 doesn't have this capability, so all the receiver will 'see' is standard DTS (the same audio found on DVD, but usually at the higher 1509kbps bit-rate). If you want to see the DTS-HD MA lights on your Sony...
  25. Adam Barratt

    Denon 3808 vs Onkyo TX-SR875 or TX-NR905

    I narrowed the field down to these three models about six weeks ago, and tried out a Denon 3808 and an Onkyo 875 at home. I was offered the 3808 for about $100 less than the Onkyo (a bargain really) but I still picked the 875 in the end. The 3808 has a really nice looking GUI, but the 875...
  26. Adam Barratt

    Video format of SD extras on European BDs

    I live in a PAL territory where the odd NTSC DVD title was released by studios to save money, and most people with larger DVD collections have a good spread of both NTSC and PAL titles as multi-region players have been the standard for nearly a decade. The handful of people I know who are also...
  27. Adam Barratt

    Sony DTS Dolby Master Decoding Question

    There is no such thing as "DTS Dolby Master Audio". DTS and Dolby are two separate companies. As Stephen said, there are two lossless formats available at the moment: 'DTS-HD Master Audio' from a company called DTS (formerly Digital Theater Systems) and 'Dolby TrueHD' from a company called Dolby...
  28. Adam Barratt

    Warner Bros.: which titles "deserve" lossless audio?

    It doesn't cost any more in licensing fees to add a TrueHD soundtrack if you're already including Dolby Digital, and the additional engineer time is negligible. It's more a matter of priorities (i.e. supplemental extras vs. lossless audio/bit budget vs. BD50 cost vs. expected sales). Adam
  29. Adam Barratt

    Video format of SD extras on European BDs

    The difference between PAL and NTSC is easy to see, even among casual (i.e. non-videophile) viewers or when viewed on quite small televisions. Even without the obvious visual clues, practically everything in a modern video chain (player, amp, TV) indicates the video format being displayed in...
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